Mookie Wilson believes Mets still owe him some answers

The former Mets outfielder writes in his upcoming autobiography "Mookie: Life, Baseball and the '86 Mets" that he never received an explanation as to why he was removed as the first base coach following the 2011 season. Wilson still serves as a club ambassador and roving instructor for the organization.

“It’s sad to admit this, but I have basically become a hood ornament for the Mets,” Wilson writes, according to excerpts obtained by the New York Post. “I have no decision-making role at all in my job description. I would have liked an explanation as to why I was moved from first base coach to the ambassadorship, but none was ever given.

“I feel that I deserve to hear just some words to justify the actions of an organization that I have honored and promoted every day of my nearly thirty-year existence in it.”

Wilson, who hit the famous ground ball that went through Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series to force Game Seven, spent 2011 as the first base and outfield coach during manager Terry Collins' first year at the helm. He was replaced by current first base coach, Tom Goodwin, and was one of four coaches who did not return in the same capacity for the 2012 season.

“I understand that jobs come and go in the baseball business, but sometimes management loses sight of how these moves play with people’s lives,” Wilson writes in the autobiography, according to the Post. “When you have no stability and don’t know what you’re doing from one year to the next, it’s very difficult to do anything. One year you’re making $100,000, the next year just $40,000. Where’s the reasoning? How can people live under those circumstances?

“For as difficult as it is, I don’t think it really bothers team management, and that troubles me. I don’t care about not having a job. If they fire me because they have a better replacement, that’s fine. But when no information is given as to why a move is made, it’s much worse than getting an explanation I might disagree with. They just dictated my career as a player and a coach and it wasn’t right.”

Wilson also writes that Collins told him the decision wasn't his, according to the Post.

“It was a strange season coaching under that new regime,” Wilson writes, per the Post. “I felt like I was watching the deterioration of the Mets organization. They seemed to have no identity.

“My concern was that the character of the players they were looking for superseded the talent they brought to the table. Character on a team is important, but you’ve got to have the horses to win.”

Wilson's autobiography will be released Tuesday. He played for the Mets from 1980-89, winning a World Series in 1986, and ranks near the top of several team statistical categories.